Fight Fire with Fire
by Fiachra Ochiern
Summary: John and his boys are meeting Seth at Singer Salvage to see what they can do about a common enemy. But demon plans are hard to escape, and Winchesters are very good at keeping secrets. Third in the Fraternity series.
1. Chapter 1

_Megaera – in Greek mythology, one of the Furies born of the blood of Uranus. Translates to Grudging, a hateful or spiteful woman. Daughter of Azazel._

* * *

They're on I-90, halfway through Minnesota, when Sam bolts up in the back seat, throwing off Dean's jacket he's been using as a flimsy blanket as he sleeps. Dean rests his elbow on the seat back and cranes his neck to look at his brother while John keeps driving.

"You okay back there?"

John glances in the rearview mirror so he can see Sammy. He had been napping pretty hard, which John doesn't really mind because they had started out early in the morning and Minnesota was pretty boring for landscape anyway. Sam looks around the car, wide-eyed, like he can't really believe he's just in the Impala.

"Sam?" John really hopes Sammy doesn't have to hurl because he doesn't think he can pull over to the shoulder and slow down fast enough.

But then Sam's head lifts enough that John can see the line of red on Sam's top lip.

"Sam, you're bleeding," Dean says before John can point it out.

Sam lifts a hand to his face and presses the back of his fingers to the skin between his top lip and the bottom of his nose. It comes away red and wet. He ducks his head down and starts wiping the back of his arm across his mouth and nose.

"Don't," John orders. "Tip your head back."

He digs in his pocket and fishes out a handkerchief that has seen better days. But it's better than getting blood on Dean's coat.

Again.

Dean snags the square of cloth as soon as John lifts it up, and then Dean's back is facing the windshield and half his body is lying over the seat back. John smacks the boy's back just to remind him that he probably should stay sitting down while John is driving.

"Here, take that," Dean orders. "Pinch your nose. No, up higher."

John tries to look at what's going on just in the rearview mirror, but mostly he just gets a view of Dean's back and arms. Finally, Dean settles back into the front seat, although he keeps his body backwards.

"Okay, you got it?" he asks Sammy, just to be sure.

John looks over his shoulder now. Sammy has John's handkerchief pressed under his nose and his other hand is pinching the bridge of his nose so hard that his fingertips are turning white.

"You still bleeding, Sammy?" John asks.

They passed a rest stop at least twenty miles ago, but he find a spot on the shoulder somewhere if he needs to.

"I'm okay." Sammy's voice is muffled by the handkerchief, but he still sounds confident in his answer.

So John keeps driving.

"What happened to you?" Dean asks as he turns around and settles back into the passenger seat. "You sneeze too hard or something?"

"No."

How Sam can sound like he's pouting from behind a handkerchief must be a special talent John doesn't know about.

"Bad dream," says Sam, short and hard.

"What, so you hit yourself in the face?" Dean twists in his seat to look back at Sam. Which means that John can focus his attention back on the road.

"No," Sam says. "It was weird."

And that's all he says. John would leave it alone — he's not the best at comforting after bad dreams, and he knows that — but weird in his line of work usually means he has to kill something before too long.

"Weird how?" he asks with his eyes still on the road.

"Nothing." And there's that pouting through the handkerchief again. "It's just … I was bleeding in the dream, too."

That's not so weird, actually. John knows that pain can translate to dreams, especially if Sam was already hurting. Maybe he should turn down the A/C.

"And I think I had a gun," Sam says. "I think I was gonna shoot somebody."

John glances in his rearview, but Sam's head is still tilted up and turned so that Sam can see out the window. John doesn't know enough about dreams and what a shrink would say to know if this is something he needs to take care of or just something Sammy's worried about.

"Hey, don't worry about it," Dean says suddenly. "We won't be shooting anybody in Sioux Falls. Except maybe some target practice."

Dean smiles over his shoulder and then turns around again, only glancing at John when his eyes catch him.

"Right," John says. "You guys have been to Bobby's before."

Actually the last time the boys had been at Singer Salvage, Sammy could barely walk. John doesn't even know how much Dean remembers of that visit.

"He'll have stuff for you to do," John says. He wants Dean and Sam both to keep busy, especially when Seth arrives and they have to start going over how Hell works and how to kill or contain a Knight of Hell like the Yellow-Eyed Demon.

"It's summer vacation," groans Sammy from the back seat.

John frowns into his mirror. First the kid wants to do homework, and now he's complaining because he wants a vacation. He doesn't know how to get through to Sam.

"How's that nose doing, Sammy?" Dean asks quickly.

Sam pulls the handkerchief away from his nose and leaves a smear of mostly-dried blood on his skin between his lip and his nose. But no new blood seeps out of his nose, even when Sammy folds the handkerchief over and presses the clean part to his lip.

"You'll be fine," Dean concludes.

John just shakes his head.

"Next rest stop, we'll stop so you can wash your hands," he says.

He doesn't really want Sammy to be covered in blood when they get out at Bobby's place. Plus, he can't get blood over the seats in his Impala.

**o0O0o**

John cranks the wheel to turn into the dusty driveway of Bobby's place, labeled only with a peeling sign nailed up to the wooden fence. It looks just like a salvage place is supposed to look, lines of cars sitting dead in a row, like caskets. Bobby's house hasn't changed at all, and John parks his car near the front door. Sammy's already out of his seat belt and opening the door eagerly.

"Help your brother with the bags, Sam," John says before his kid can get too wild.

Sammy slams the car door shut and rushes around to the trunk of the car, waiting on the balls of his feet as John tosses the keys to Dean so they can take care of the baggage. Dean shrugs as if to say, _What're you gonna do?_ John rolls his eyes and heads for the house ahead of his sons.

"When's Seth coming here?" Sam asks, heaving one of the duffles up to his shoulder.

"I don't know."

John had tried to call Seth's landline several times before he even got on the road, but Seth never answered. Given that the landline is the only real form of contact that John has, he gave up after the fourth call and just packed up the Impala, driving for Singer Salvage.

He knocks on the door three times and waits for Bobby to let him in. Knowing Bobby, there's probably some booby traps for him to disable before John can actually get into the house. But then the door opens, and John stares at Seth standing just inside Bobby Singer's house.

"Hey, John," Seth says, lifting his eyebrows on his forehead just enough that John thinks the bastard's actually surprised to see him.

"Didn't know I was running late to this thing," John says flatly.

"What thing?"

God, if Seth looks any more like a confused puppy, John might have to slug him in the shoulder just on principle.

"You told me to meet you here."

"No, I know." Seth quickly pulled the door wide open to let John into the house. "I didn't expect you so soon. Why didn't you give us a call?"

"I tried calling the number you gave me." John stubbornly keeps his jacket on his shoulders. "You didn't answer."

"I was probably here already." Seth rubs his palm over the top of his head sheepishly. "I should probably get a cell phone, huh?"

Sam and Dean come barreling through the open door before John can find any response to Seth that doesn't include the words _no shit_.

"Hi, Seth," Sam says immediately.

Seth smiles brightly at Sam and then reaches out a hand to Dean, who shifts the duffle in one hand to his left so he can shake hands with the tall hunter.

"Hey, man." Dean nods auspiciously, but his smile is that little half-quirk that John recognizes from when Dean is happiest. Usually when he's driving the car and has complete control over the stereo system.

John never should've instituted the rule about driver picking the music. He really has no love for Led Zep.

"You letting strangers into my house now, Wesson?"

Bobby Singer comes up to the open front room of the house and surveys the ladened crew that stands with their backs to the door. He has put on a few pounds from the last time John has seen him in person, but he still wears that grungy cap even indoors.

"No, sir," Seth immediately replies.

So, John gets the snarky Seth Wesson, but Bobby Singer warrants a _sir_ from him. Perfect. John stores that tidbit in the back of his brain, where he keeps most of the information on Seth that he doesn't dare write down. Bobby nods at Sam and Dean and scratches at his beard.

"Seem to remember your boys being shorter, Winchester," he says. "You sure these string beans are yours?"

He raises one eyebrow in John's direction, but John puts up with it when Sam stifles a giggle that John rarely hears from his son. When he glances from the corner of his eye, Dean is looking at Sam and trying not to laugh. The boys are loose and relaxed, and while John would usually remind himself to tell them to be on their guard, there's something safe about Bobby's place. Maybe it's because he knows how paranoid Singer is and how many defenses he has already built into the place — John hasn't forgotten the permanent devil's trap on the ceiling of the porch — but he doesn't have a problem with Sam and Dean treating this like a vacation. The salvage yard is a pretty good place for a couple of boys, especially one like Dean, who shows as much interest in learning to change the oil in the Impala as how to load rock salt into shotgun shells.

"Well, I got a room set up for you boys, if you don't mind sharing," Bobby says.

"No, sir," Dean answers.

Bobby lets out a grumbled "ah" and waves his hand.

"You call me Bobby," he says. "Bad enough I got this giant thinking he can call me sir." He jerks his thumb at Seth, who ducks his head in between his shoulders like a boy getting caught doing something he knows he shouldn't.

John tucks this away in the back of his mind, too.

"C'mon, I'll show you." Bobby waves the boys after him and takes them upstairs. Seth turns to John as soon as Sam's foot falls on the first step, taking up the rear of the little party.

"I took some books along with me, and Bobby has some already here," he says, shooting straight into what John suspects he wants to hear. "We got a little distracted when I first got here."

"Distracted?" The worst thing would be if there was a hunt or something that either Bobby or John needed to get to.

But he follows Seth to Bobby's kitchen table and finds a mess of papers spread out like a mangled tablecloth. Many of them are filled with the same types of symbols as Seth has pulled out of his journal in the past. But there's also a large swatch of graph paper that is filled with square drawings in pencil, like something an architect would bring in.

"You building something?" John leaned down to take a closer look at the drawings.

The drawing was just of a square room, not an entire house. And the margins of the paper had penciled notes like _iron w/ salt_ with an arrow pointing to a long drawing of a wall.

"Just a room," Seth says. "Bobby wanted some extra security, so I brought some drawings from the bunker."

"Bunker?" That hadn't been the first time Seth referred to a bunker, but it only makes John think of bomb drills in school.

"Yeah, I live in a bunker." Seth shuffles around the papers until they form mostly-organized piles. He's not looking at John, and his voice is a little muffled by the way he's tucking his chin into his chest. "It used to be a bomb shelter, but …"

He lifts one hand to flap in the air with a half-hearted gesture John can't begin to interpret. But then Bobby walks down the stairs again, empty-handed and alone.

"Your boys grew fast, Winchester," he says. "How tall is Dean now?"

"Pushing five-seven."

The kid's going to get taller than John at this rate, 'cuz he's certainly not done growing yet.

John waves the back of his hand across the table.

"What's all this?"

"Panic room," Bobby says, as if that's any kind of answer. "Seth brought some good ideas from the Men of Letters."

John juts his chin out and nods, considering.

"Big group, then," he asks, giving Seth a sideways look. "Real think tank of hunters?"

The thought makes him smile because it sounds like the biggest oxymoron since "jumbo shrimp." Seth just hangs his head and focuses on the paper he's trying to sort into piles.

"It's just me." He doesn't look anywhere but the table.

John leans back to look at Bobby; although he's probably not being very subtle about what he's doing. Doesn't really matter when Seth refuses to even raise his head. Bobby pushes his hat back off his head and uses the heel of his hand to smooth down what little hair he has left before he slides his hat right back where it belongs. The look he shoots John is all wrinkled eyebrows and mouth curved almost into an upside-down U.

So, Bobby probably knew that was a stupid question to ask Seth. John rolls his shoulders back and tries to figure out the best way to apologize.

"So, what'd you bring for me?" he asks.

Bobby rolls his eyes at the ceiling, and his arms spasm like he's a second away from throwing them up to the ceiling. John ignores all this and places his palms down on the table so he can lean into it.

"Yeah." Seth lays all the piles he's gathered in front of Bobby — who shoots Seth a dirty look as well — and reaches out to dig under another large sheet of graph paper. He pulls out a book as think as a dictionary and about a hundred years old. The pages are even yellow.

Seth sets the book down in front of John and flips the first few pages so that John could see the beginnings of what looked a whole lot like encyclopedia entries.

"That's the best demonology text I could find," Seth says. "It really helps if you know the name you're looking for, but I think we can get something from that."

John immediately starts clawing his way to the middle of the book to find the "M" names. Meg may not be an actual demon name, but he has to take the chance and find whatever he can.

"I got some better devil's traps than what you've been working with," Bobby says. "We can look them over and try to figure—"

John doesn't know if Bobby actually stops talking or if he just can't hear the man past the thundering of teenage feet down the stairs.

"Dean, wait!"

And there's the tagalong. Dean slides right up to the table and starts scanning the table, his head basically on a swivel as he tries to look at everything at once.

"We hunting something?" he asks eagerly.

"I told you this is just reconnaissance for now." John closes the book with all the demon names.

Dean is always more impressed with what he's doing — or what John tells him to do — when John starts talking like they're on missions. John can't really blame the kid. He's still at the age where soldiers are heroes, not guys who go into battle and don't come back or come back wounded.

Sammy shuffles his way next to Dean and gives the table a cursory glance.

"Dean, you said you'd help me unpack," he whines. "I gotta put my clothes away."

Seth glances at Bobby, confusion written all over his face. John doesn't tell either of the other men that this is what Sammy does: unpacks as soon as he can and stays that way for as long as he can.

"I want both of you learning from Seth while we're here," John says.

"Homework?" Dean's face twists into teenage disgust.

"It's summer, Dad." Sammy rests his chin on Bobby's table, not pouting but definitely lethargic.

"Hey, that reminds me," Seth says suddenly, "I brought something for you guys."

He turns and strides to Bobby's open living room, where an green olive duffle and two other bags are lined up next to Bobby's dilapidated couch. John shifts almost the same time as Sam and Dean do to watch where Seth is going.

"It's not books, is it?" Dean lifts his eyebrows to show how impressed he is with _that_ idea.

Sammy almost straightens when Dean mentions books. But Seth just dives into the backpack next to his duffle and pulls out two baseball gloves. He stands up slowly again and gives a sheepish smile.

"I couldn't find a soccer ball," he says — and why would he want a soccer ball anyway? "But Bobby said he had a baseball around here somewhere."

John frowns and wants to protest. He's not even sure why; he could make the argument that they don't have time for a baseball game, but he doesn't really want the boys involved in this research anyway. But Sam's already halfway to Seth before he even remembers to look back at John for permission.

"We have some things to set up today, anyway," Bobby says. When John looks at the other man, Bobby shrugs by tilting his head on one shoulder rather than lifting the shoulder all the way up. "Probably won't get much studying done."

John can't argue, and a game of catch will at least get the boys out of the house while they look at demonology texts.

"Fine, go on."

Dean bolts from John's side and reaches Seth before Sammy even does. Bobby leaves the room as Seth hands over both gloves and lets the boys try them on.

"That's an adult glove," he says as Dean flexes his fingers to open and close the mitt of the glove. "I think it was my grandfather's."

A real family business, then, if Seth's father and grandfather were both hunters.

"This one's kinda small." Sammy frowns at his hand with his nose wrinkled.

"Sorry, it was the only kid's one I could find." Seth gives a useless tug to the tip of the glove, like he can stretch it to the right size. "It's not very used."

He gives Sam a hopeful smile then glances back to his backpack.

"I got another adult glove, but that's for …"

Seth doesn't really finish his sentence. Instead he glances at John like he's looking for permission, too. _No._ No way is John letting Seth off the hook so he can play catch while John does all the work.

"Go on, you two." He nods at his boys, and _only_ at his boys.

Bobby walks back in and tosses a baseball that's more beige than white. It lands right in Dean's glove with a _smack_.

"You heard yer father," Bobby says. "Scamp!"

Dean shots Sammy a wide grin that has none of the smugness or cockiness that John usually sees in Dean's smiles. They both bolt for the door, scrambling outside as the door bangs shut behind them. John finally looks at Seth only to see him staring at the shut door, not smiling but not really pouting, either.

"Let's clean this up," Bobby says gruffly.

John turns back around and focuses on gathering up the papers on the table so he can actually see the wood underneath.


	2. Chapter 2

_Abbadon – Knight of Hell, known in the Vulgate as king of an army of locusts. Chosen of Lucifer. From the Hebrew for destruction._

* * *

John wakes up in the morning stiff from an unfamiliar bed. He's grateful to get his own room and not be sleeping on the couch like Seth, but Bobby must get his mattresses at a used discount store.

It's still early, and the boys are sleeping. Which isn't surprising, considering Sammy almost fell asleep into his supper last night, and Dean had the task of keeping up with his brother all day. John walks down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he can already smell the coffee. As he pours himself a mug, he can hear voices coming from Bobby's office — one of the few rooms in the house that has a working lock — so he knows where the others are at least. He takes his mug with him and walks down the hallway.

"No, we can't summon him here," Seth says even before John reaches the door. "What are we gonna do? Bargain? Demons deal in souls."

John freezes halfway down the hallway and becomes very aware of Bobby's squeaky boards.

"You said we can kill it." Bobby speaks low and rough, like he's trying to whisper but failing.

Forget freezing. John rushes for the door and yanks it open.

"I don't have—"

"Kill what?" John cuts right through Seth's sentence and makes both Seth and Bobby jerk in their chairs as they face the door.

Good to know he still has some skills.

"You can kill a demon?" He pins Seth with a demanding look he's learned entirely from dealing with his boys.

"There are ways," Seth says slowly, "that you can kill a demon instead of exorcizing it." He glances at his hands and swallows hard. "There's a ritual to cleanse one, too, but—"

John isn't interested in cleaning up something from the Pit.

"You can kill a demon?"

Doesn't Seth understand that he's supposed to give more information than that?

Seth scrubs his face with both palms and digs his nails into his scalp. When done with that, he sits back in his chair and looks at Bobby instead of John.

"I need a weapon," Seth says. "Something specific, and I don't have any of them."

"So get them!" John's knuckles are tight around the coffee mug that he's almost surprised he's still holding.

"That's what I'm trying to do!" Seth snaps back. He surges forward in his chair, but he stops short of getting to his feet. His shoulders sink again, and he looks between Bobby and John. "There's a hunter in Colorado, Elkins. He mostly deals in vampires, I think."

"Vampires don't exi—"

And there's Seth rolling his eyes again. God, John can't imagine trying to raise the man as a teenager. He has enough trouble with Sammy.

And Seth does have a point. John wouldn't have thought that demon hierarchies existed a month ago, not to mention Knights of Hell.

"Fine." He exhales gustily and tries not to roll his eyes right back. "What about Elkins?"

"He has a gun made by Samuel Colt, with … some help." Seth's eyes dart to one side, but John can't find whatever he's looking at. Doesn't matter, anyway. "The bullets can kill almost anything supernatural. It's not strong enough to descend into Hell, but it will take care of any Yellow-Eyed Bastard."

John's fingernails _clink_ against the coffee mug.

"Who said anything about yellow eyes?"

John is taking in all the information he can from Seth, but he _knows_ that he hasn't told Seth exactly how he got into hunting.

"You did." Seth stares at John for so long that his eyebrows seem to sink down into a frown without any other movement in Seth's face. "You weren't exactly subtle with the questions."

John has got to look at that previous-law-enforcement theory he had again.

"Fine," he says again. "So we go and get the gun?"

Seth's eyebrows fly halfway up his forehead.

"You?" His voice is at least half an octave higher than it should be. "No. You wanna tell me you're the soul of diplomacy?"

John gets the feeling that Seth is laughing at him.

"Are you telling me I can't—"

"Oh, will both you idjits shut up." Bobby suddenly stands up, making both Seth and John look at him. "I'm going."

"Bobby?"

And for some reason, _this _is the thing that surprises Seth so much that all the tension floods from his limbs and leaves him sagging in his chair.

"You said we need a way to contain this blasted demon before we kill it," Bobby says, with one meaty finger pointing directly at Seth's face.

"Yeah."

"So we need this panic room you've been talking about."

Something shifts in John's brain with an almost audible _click_. He had thought the panic room was a throwaway idea. Seth had something like that in his bomb shelter, so Bobby wanted one for his paranoia-based house. It couldn't serve a more express purpose. Only that sounds like a very good plan. Keep the demon contained with something like what John only glimpsed last night on Bobby's table.

"Iron walls blessed with salt, devil's traps on all the walls," Bobby keeps talking as he backhands a gesture towards his own walls. "Sounds like a pretty good prison for a demon."

"So you build the panic room," says Seth. "I'll go—"

He starts to stand up, but Bobby just turns and walks to an old roll-top desk against one wall of the room.

"From what you told me, it isn't just Yellow Eyes that's after John," he says.

John frowns at Seth and tries to figure if this is new information. He does still need to look up if Meg is an actual demon name, and she's probably not the actual demon with yellow eyes instead of black. If that means there's more than one demon after him, John needs to get his shit together, and fast.

"You got more research than I do, and John needs that info." Bobby nods at John as he places a large tome on the roll-top. "Besides, I don't trust this bozo to knock holes in my walls."

John rolls his eyes. He sees Seth chewing on his lips like he's trying desperately not to smile, but John's completely justified because Bobby always gives him a hard time. It's just not usually so light-hearted. Giving him grief about John's construction skills is a lot different than chewing John out over a hunt.

"I know a few hunters, real old school," Bobby says. "Exactly the type who'd know where Elkins hides out these days."

He pulls out a thin black book — the kind Dean would make a hundred dirty jokes about — from his desk drawer. Seth stands up with him and drops the book in his lap back on the cushy chair he had been sitting on.

"You're gonna leave us alone in your house?" he asks as one corner of his mouth lifts up. "You sure you wanna come back to what we could do to it?"

Bobby strides back toward the open door that John is halfway blocking. He pauses long enough to slap Seth on his bicep.

"I trust you, kid," he says.

And Seth just melts while his eyes go wide enough to make him look like a little kid. His mouth gapes in surprise, but he looks more like he got surprised by how much someone likes him. Bobby doesn't say anything about that — maybe Bobby doesn't see it — and brushes past John and out the door.

John slurps at his coffee, cooled off by now so that he already needs a warm-up. Seth ducks his head down to stare at the book he left on his chair. John doesn't even want to touch what Seth thinks of Bobby, but he can see the younger man looking up to Bobby as a fellow man of research and dusty, old books.

"I still want Sam and Dean to put in some work," he says, because he really does. As much as it's summer and a game or two of catch can't hurt, John needs them to learn the things that are going to protect them.

"I was planning on teaching Sam more Enochian." Seth lifts one shoulder into something that's almost a shrug. He doesn't tilt his head down like Bobby does, though. "It's a whole language."

"Sure." John nods. That's pretty much what he had in mind. Not the whole language bit, but he knows there must be more than just one symbol because he saw Seth's journal. "But Dean gets that, too."

Seth nods.

"Okay."

He leaves his book where it is and picks up a stack of papers instead. The one on the top is graph paper, and John recognizes it from last night. Walking over to Seth, John sips on more coffee and glances over what he can see of the plans. The room is sketched out to be pretty small, just about nine feet by nine, and there's more detail around the materials and the symbols than the actual measurements.

"Have you ever done construction before?" Seth mutters at John over his shoulder.

John drinks his coffee.

"Not since I owned my own house," he says, because he's not actually going to say that Mary was the last one who asked him to do anything resembling home repair.

She had wanted a front porch, and John only got as far as cutting the boards and nailing his thumb a dozen times before he decided they had the money to pay professionals for this kind of thing.

"You?" Just for that he turns the question on Seth.

Seth huffs a little as his mouth turns into a half-smile.

"I think I'm better at tearing things down," he says.

Well, this should be interesting.

**o0O0o**

"You have to measure, _then_ cut."

John closes his eyes and clearly pictures throwing the metal mallet in his hand directly at Seth's head.

"I know the rules," he says when the picture is complete. "I'm not an idiot."

Seth stands with his hands on his hips, hovering over the lengths of iron rods gathered from around the salvage yard, and glowers at John in return. That picture of a hammer sailing into his head isn't really helping John that much.

"You know how to do it right, why don't you start on the cutting?" John tosses his hammer down towards the pile. It hasn't been helping much with getting the screws out of the rods they've already found. "I think I have a book to read through, anyway."

"You can't leave me with all this work!" Seth throws out his hands like John is leaving him alone with a strigta.

Before John can argue more — and despite how much he wants to — Dean jogs out of the house and up to the pile of iron next to Bobby's basement entrance. Sammy is following after, stuffing a piece of toast in his mouth as he runs.

"Hey, Dad." Dean grins and shrugs in his loose T-shirt like he wants to show off his muscles. "What about that reconnaissance?"

John glares at Seth when the other man looks gobsmacked at the very question. He doesn't want his boys to even crack the cover of that demonology text, no matter how helpful Dean thinks he can be. Sammy stares at the three men — almost-men in Dean's case — with his cheeks stuffed full of bread as he chews slowly. John presses the tips of his fingers against the pad of his thumb and rubs them together slowly.

"I was just going inside to take a look at what we got," he says slowly, like this has been the plan all along. "Why don't you two help out Seth with this stuff while I get started."

John smacks Dean on the shoulder and pushes Sam forward so both of them know that this is where he wants them. Seth's eyebrows go up as he looks at his two new helpers, then he looks right at John with his eyebrows drawn down into a total bitch face. John tries not to gloat too hard.

"Dad, we can help you, too, right?" Sammy asks. "Seth showed me how to read his books last night."

John can't help glaring at Seth. If that man has gone behind John's back and started his sons on demonology—

"You're not fluent yet," Seth says with a roll of his eyes. "There's a lot more sigils you don't know."

John bites on his tongue but doesn't say anything about the books or what he's going to look at.

"You guys start here, and then we'll go from there." He pats Sammy on the shoulder to reassure him.

"Dad."

"Help Seth," John orders before Dean can even start his question.

He turns on his heel and starts marching to the door of the house before Sammy can start with his own questions or Seth can start complaining in front of the boys. Seth's probably staring at him with a dirty look by the feeling John gets at the base of his scalp, but soon he hears Seth ordering Dean to take up one end of a metal bar, so there's nothing to worry about.

Once inside, John heads straight for Bobby's study and pulls out the ancient book that Seth had given him the day before. The text is aged, like calligraphy, inside the book, but John can still read the large letters that make the book seem like a dictionary. He turns to the M's and starts running his finger down the pages. There's nothing for Margaret, but he wasn't really expecting there to be. When he gets further down the entries, he sees the name _Megaera_.

"In Greek mythology," he reads, "one of the Furies, called Grudging."

There's a hand-written note in the margin after that short description:

_Daughter of Azazel_.


	3. Chapter 3

_Alastair – Knight of Hell, Grand Inquisitor of Hell. Within ranks, Defender, linked to Nemesis, ancient spirit of divine retribution._

* * *

Things fall into a pretty good rhythm after Bobby leaves, and John's surprised at how easy it is to make a routine. He and Seth spend all of their mornings on the panic room, usually stopping to have lunch before going back into the afternoon. It's a lot of collecting scrap and cutting it, making sure that it's iron, and buying rock salt in bulk so they can bless the iron before it goes in the room. Seth usually handles the Latin, throwing in what John guesses is Enochian occasionally.

Dean and Sam are on their own for most of the day, although John sometimes recruits them to hold things down or help carry things when the job turns out to be too heavy for two men. Dean excels at it, and Sam is always asking about the symbols or the language Seth uses. They stop long before supper, and once they've eaten, Seth gets to assigning both Sam and Dean symbols to copy out the next day. Dean hasn't stopped calling it homework, since Seth always checks how they're doing the next day, but Sammy has yet to complain.

It feels good. Right up until the day Dean and Sam get into a fight.

John doesn't even know what's going on until Sammy bursts into the house and slams the door behind him, completely ignoring both Seth and John where they're in the front yard sawing new boards for the studs to go in the new walls between the iron braces. Seth freezes in the middle of a cut to watch Sammy storm into the house. John is already jogging to the other side of the house to scan over Bobby's salvage yard. He spots Dean beside the shed where Bobby keeps most of his mechanic tools, including his lift and jacks. Dean's calm, so there's no danger anywhere around. John shoots a look over his shoulder to Seth, and Seth immediately starts waving his thumb in the vague direction of Bobby's front door.

"I … I can …" Seth's eyes are trying to stay on John but they keep darting back to the front door where Sam has disappeared to.

John grimaces but nods Seth into the house. Seth really does have a tendency to listen to Sammy with a lot more patience than John usually does, which will leave Dean in John's hands. Seth drops his hand and hurries into the house on long legs that make him look like a colt or a giant. Stupid tall guy.

John walks over to the work shed and pushes the rusty door open. Dean is bent over an open hood of a car — a Bel Air sedan from the body work, it looks like. He doesn't even look up when the shed door swings open, which is really the only way John knows that Dean's upset at all.

"Sammy decide to work on homework?" John asks in the leading way he's learned from interviewing people. It's good for victims and potential witnesses, but he's found out that it works pretty well on his sons, too.

At least, he's always thought it does, but then Dean throws the wrench in his hand straight into the wall of the shed. John looks at the new dent in Bobby's wall and hopes that's not something Bobby will want John to repair. He has his hands full enough with the iron-and-salt-and-blessed-blasted-wood "panic" room. Dean leans both his hands on the edge of the hood and lets his shoulders sink down.

"He's such a _brat_ sometimes," Dean mutters.

"He's your brother."

Dean almost _never_ complains about Sammy and how much he has to take care of his little brother. Even when Dean is the one to walk the kid to school and make sure he gets on the right bus in the bigger school districts. He's the one to take care of Sammy after school and pester the kid into doing his homework. Dean pushes himself off the car and throws his arms out like he can't take this anymore.

"That doesn't mean I want him hanging around _all _the time." With his arms flying out to his sides, Dean actually looks like a teenager throwing a fit, which he never looks like. "I mean, at least during school, I had my own classes, y'know. He keeps asking me to play catch or go into Bobby's study with him."

John shrugs and saunters up to the wreck of the car casually. He leans one hip against the car and peers down into the dirty engine.

"Well, the last time he was here, he was probably about two and a half," he says. He hasn't taken the boys to Bobby's very often. "He's still exploring."

Dean rubs the back of his wrist — one of the few places on his wrist not covered with motor oil and dust — against his temple.

"Can't I just work on this without the little brother time?" He waves his hand towards the exposed engine in front of him.

"Yeah."

John studies the engine. It looks like Dean's trying to dismantle the V8 inside the trunk, though John doesn't quite know his purpose yet. Maybe just to find out what makes it tick.

"Just …" he starts and can't figure out how to continue. Dean glances up with his eyebrows raised, but John studies the engine, with the transmission disconnected. "You're his hero, Dean."

Dean's eyes widen, but then he turns back to the engine. John can just barely see the kid's cheeks flush, which is weird because Dean hadn't even blushed when John gave him the "how-not-to-get-a-girl-pregnant" talk.

"You're the one that took care of the bullies in Indiana," John says.

"How'd you …" Dean's head snaps up suddenly, his blush still altogether there.

John cocks his head and indulges himself in giving Dean a sideways look with a little smirk.

"I'm not an idiot, son," he says. "I know what a shiner looks like."

Actually, he had thought at first that Sam himself had been getting into fights and had marched to the principal at the school, fully ready to ream the man out for allowing violence when John had just passed a colorful poster about bullying in the hallway. But then the principal had described injuries to all these bullies that Sam couldn't have caused; he didn't have the strength or the training. Dean, however, does.

Dean scrubs his hand across the back of his neck and stares down at the car.

"Yeah, well." He shrugs in a mostly aborted gesture as if John is supposed to glean the rest of the his meaning from just that.

And for all the John had never had a big family, he thinks he gets it.

"Just a little time for myself, Dad." Dean lifts his eyes to his father. "Is that so hard?"

John shakes his head. There are still four whole years between his boys, and fifteen is a very different age from eleven.

"I'll talk to him," he promises.

Dean nods decisively and then turns to pick up his wrench, hunching his shoulders a little sheepishly.

John calls that a good talk and leaves the shed and Dean to his car parts. He circles the house again, heading for the sawhorse where the dogwood boards for the studs are still on the ground. But Seth isn't back yet, which means he either stopped for a break or is still talking to Sam. Either way, John wants him back to help brace the wood so he can saw it without any trouble.

Construction is not John's area of expertise.

John walks into the house, closing the screen door quietly behind him. With an immediate scan of the open rooms, John can see Seth isn't in the living room or kitchen, so he heads for the study, where Seth spends most of his free time. Halfway down the hallway, John hears the muffled murmur of voices coming from upstairs. Apparently, Sammy takes a little longer to calm down than Dean does. He walks up the stairs and figures he can make sure Sammy's feeling alright and being productive. It _is_ summer vacation after all.

"That's his job," Seth says.

John stays where he is and tells himself that this is just another way of getting information from his sons. Besides, Sam never talks with him like this, and John knows just enough about parenting styles to know that he's the disciplinarian. Mary was always softer than he was, too.

"Little brothers have a different kind of job," Seth says while John leans his back against the wall beside the bedroom door.

"Research?"

John doesn't even have to look in the room to see Sammy roll his eyes with that line.

"No." Seth doesn't sound indulging or sympathetic. Not yet. "Making sure the big brothers don't get too big for their pants."

That's what that tone is in Seth's voice. Seth sounds amused. And John can admit that sometimes Sammy is very good at bringing Dean back down to earth. Nothing like a little brother to make a teenager feel like he's not as cool as he thinks he is.

"How d'you do that?" Sammy mumbles.

"Make fun of them, tell them when they're wrong," Seth says. "Sometimes it means you have to fight."

Neither of them say anything after that, and John nearly holds his breath. He can't stop his boys from fighting, he knows that. It'd just be nice.

"Did you fight with your brother?"

John feels his eyes grow wide at Sam's question. This is the first time he's ever heard that Seth had a brother. It's not like it really matters, not when Seth is the one helping out.

"Yeah," Seth breathes. "Especially when we were both grown-ups."

"You're not both grown-ups now?" Sammy asks with a tone that clearly says he thinks that makes no sense.

The wording _is_ a little weird, and John can't really think of an explanation for it at first. Seth rarely makes a mistake when he's speaking; he has a tendency to measure his words carefully before they ever come out of his mouth.

"He's not …" Seth says hesitantly.

And then John remembers that for all the Men of Letters is a family business, Seth is the only Man of Letters John has ever met.

"Did he die?" Sammy asks quietly.

John doesn't breathe.

"I don't know." Seth's voice is even quieter now.

For a while, nothing comes out of the bedroom the boys are sharing, not even the squeak of mattress springs or anything else that would signal people moving around. John is so quiet, he can almost see both Seth and Sammy frozen together in the room.

"There are a lot of ways you can lose someone," Seth says quietly. "I was on a hunt with him and someone else. The … the thing we were hunting found us."

Seth is obviously editing down the story so it's appropriate for Sammy. But John can read enough between the lines to think that this is Seth's experience with demons and also why he hunts them just like John does.

"Your brother's … lost?" Sammy says slowly, almost guessing at the right answer.

"Yes."

Seth's voice is strangled, hurt in a way John hasn't heard a hunter's voice in a long time. Any hunter's voice, really. It's not like hunters are a caring bunch who share the reasons they get into the business. With something still tight in his chest, John tiptoes back down the hallway and halfway down the stairs, all while Seth and Sammy are silent.

"Seth!" he calls once he's pretty far down the stairs.

He turns around and braces himself on the railing and the opposite wall of the staircase, as if he's pulling himself up to the second floor. Before his slow plodding feet can take him up further than two steps, Seth burst out of the boys' room. His eyes are wide, but not red.

"What?"

His voice isn't even wobbling or quiet like it was a moment ago.

"You planning on coming back to work sometime today?" John tilts his head so he can jerk it down towards the first floor, a half-assed gesture but Seth seems to take it at face value.

"I'm coming," Seth sighs and starts tromping down the hallway and following John down the stairs.

John purposefully doesn't look too hard at Seth, but he does see Sammy come out of the bedroom and hover just inside the door jam.

"You okay in your room, there, Sammy?" John says. He doesn't really want to encourage Sam to go outside again when Dean's already asked for some "me" time.

Sammy just gives a half-hearted shrug and then nods very, very slowly.

"Come outside if you get bored," John calls over his shoulder. "I bet I could find something for you to do."

With that threat issued, Sammy spins on his heel and flees right back into the bedroom. When Seth stifles a half-smile as well, John calls it a win on all fronts.

**o0O0o**

John rests his coffee mug on Bobby's desk and bends over his sixth book for the morning. The sun isn't even up yet, and nothing he's found has anything on the demon named Azazel. At this rate, he's going to have to ask Seth if he brought any more texts with him. He's been avoiding really talking with the man since he overheard the conversation with Sammy. It's not like John's about to approach him and confess to overhearing the conversation or bring up his supposed missing brother. There's just something about the story that nags at John in the back of his mind. Something that he feels like he should be connecting but isn't. Not quite yet.

The study door bursts open, and John looks up expecting to see Seth. Surprisingly, Dean leans into the room, still wearing his sleep pants and a plain T-shirt. His eyes are wide and wild.

"Dean—"

"Something's wrong with Sammy," Dean says immediately. "He won't wake up."

John leaps out of the chair and launches himself for the door. Dean presses himself to one side just in time for John to rush past him and swing himself around the corner and up the stairs. He shoulders his way into the open door to the boys' bedroom and sees Sammy lying in the trundle bed, on his back and completely still. The covers are thrown off his body, and the skin under his nose is red and wet again from a nosebleed.

"Sam." John surges forward and grabs both of Sammy's shoulders with his hands.

Sam's eyes stay shut, and he doesn't move, not even to groan about needing five more minutes in bed.

"Sam!" John's arms jerk as he shakes Sammy, just once.

Sam's head flops back and forth on the bed, and he lets out a grunt like John just slapped him. The sound twists itself into John's stomach and stays there, but he waits to see if Sam will open his eyes. With another groan, Sam rolls his head back and then peels his eyes open.

"Dean?" Sammy breathes.

Suddenly, Sammy's eyes fly open, wild and dilated, and he jerks up in John's hands, pushing against the grip John has on his shoulders. John leans back enough so that he's not holding Sammy down against the bed any longer, and Dean surges forward to slip into the space John left open.

"Sammy, you okay?"

"Dean!"

Sam throws his arms around Dean's neck, practically falling into Dean's space. But Dean just catches his brother and wraps one hand solidly against Sam's back.

"Hey, kid, what's wrong?" Dean rubs his hand up and down Sammy's back.

John pushes off the bed and scoots down to the end of the trundle bed. Dean readily takes his place — half-sitting on the edge of the bed and leaning hard over Sammy — without even glancing at John.

"I didn't mean to." Sammy's fingers dig into Dean's T-shirt. "Dean, I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" Dean says. "I'm not mad."

John stands up so he can take two steps in one side and see both of his boys at the same time. Sam's face is still red, and the blood under his nose is smeared across his mouth like paint now. Some of it stays on Dean's shirt, a red stain like someone hit him in the chest and broke skin.

"I shot you." Sam's eyes squeeze shut, leaking tears down his face. "There was a ghost, and I was so mad, and I shot you."

What the heck? It sounds like a bad dream, sure, but there's something desperate about Sam's hold on Dean's shirt and the way he's gasping for breath.

"I'm sorry," Sammy sobs.

"It's okay," Dean says. "Hey, it was just a dream, right? It's okay."

John's not so sure, suddenly. He pulls a clean cloth from his pocket and unfolds it, looking for blood stains leftover from Sam's accident on the drive a few days ago. Seeing none, he passes the handkerchief over to Sammy and waves it a bit in front of his face.

"Here," John says. "Pinch your nose."

Sammy immediately ducks his head as he snags the cloth, but he remembers enough to tip his head back as soon as the handkerchief goes under his nose.

"Sorry," he mutters through the fabric with one hand on the bridge of his nose.

"You having bad dreams a lot, Sammy?" John asks.

Djinn usually put their victims in a coma, and they're not really nightmarish figures.

"I dunno." Sammy tries to shrug even with both hands busy.

"What are they about? What do you dream?" There's a legend somewhere that nightmares come from actual mares, horses that carry victims off.

"I dunno," Sam says, louder this time.

"Dad."

Dean looks over his shoulder at John and almost frowns. Almost, but then John can't see any frown a moment later. Immediately, Dean turns back to his brother.

"I got this." Dean takes the handkerchief out of Sammy's hand and folds it over to use the clean edge to wipe away at the blood that's smeared over Sammy's chin.

"I'll be in the study," John says, just so Dean knows what to do when he's done with cleaning up Sammy.

Dean only nods without looking back at John. So, John marches out of the room and back down the stairs into Bobby's study again. He walks past the stack of books, the only ones he's found in Bobby's library to list any demon names, and stares up at Bobby's bookcase again.

Mares are Old English, he remembers that much. But hags can cause nightmares, too. John's had an argument with Bill Harville about hunting hags because there was some disagreement about whether or not hags qualified as human, like witches did. He'll start with the mare, that seems the most likely. Where the hell does Bobby keep his books on Old English monsters? How does he find anything in this mess?

"You're up early."

John looks up from the book in his hands just enough to glare at Seth. He follows Seth's eyes around the room and sees the mess of books he's left behind, as well as the books he's already pulled off of Bobby's shelves with this new search.

"Did you bring any more books on demons?" John snaps at Seth. "I can't find anything in here."

He needs to find _something_ on at least one of his searches. So far his supposed reconnaissance is not very productive. Seth nods easily, like he was just waiting for John to ask instead of drive himself crazy trying to find something in Bobby's library.

"I got a couple in my car." Seth jerks his head back towards the door. "I'll get them."

He pauses for a minute, but John doesn't know what else he's supposed to give the man. John goes back to the book in his hands and scans the Table of Contents. _Black Dogs, also Hellhounds. Cunning Folk: Witches or healers? Pixies vs. Brownies._

"If you're gonna stay in here all day, I'll take Dean," Seth says from the doorway. "We need to finish the studs so we can put up some sheetrock for walls."

"Fine."

John doesn't even care. He has a Knight of Hell to worry about, and now Sammy is dreaming about ghosts. John just has to rule out the worst possibility before he tags in this stupid construction project with Seth again.


	4. Chapter 4

_Samhain – Upper-level demon. Has command over ghosts and the dead. Weakness against masks, limited vision?_

* * *

By the time Seth comes complaining about John's lack of help the next day, John has Sammy's nightmares narrowed down to the work of a Mare or a witch, maybe one who has a familiar or some other pet on a leash. He's already dug a round dreamcatcher out of Bobby's attic and dusted it off, hanging it on a nail above Sam's bed in the room he's sharing with Dean.

He had moved on to the demon books Seth handed over, but he hasn't gotten very far at all. He does know by now that Imps are seriously low on the demon totem pole, below even crossroad demons. But none of the names sound right, or like the right description behind them. Samhain is strongest on Halloween, and while Mary was killed shortly after that, it doesn't really fit the demon's strengths of calling up dead spirits.

Seth is back to glaring at him, and to keep the peace, John returns to the basement and starts nailing slabs of sheetrock to the frame of the room so that it actually starts looking like a room. Bobby's study phone rings, and Seth is the one who answers it, which John gives him. Seth and Bobby seem to get along well. Makes sense, given both of them have an unusual love of books and dust. Seth walks back into the unfinished room and picks up a hammer.

"Case?" John asks shortly. He wants Bobby back so that he can ask if the man knows of any witches in the area — or out of the area — who could have the range to send nightmares to an eleven-year-old boy.

"No, it was just Bobby." Seth shrugs and goes to the opposite end of the sheetrock John's working on. "He's having some trouble tracking down Elkins in Colorado. The guy disappeared a few years ago and hasn't come up for air since, not even in the hunting realm."

John grimaces but keeps working. They need that gun, though.

"He says he doesn't want anyone coming out to help him." Seth drives a long nail through the sheetrock with a little too much force.

John tilts his head and looks at Seth from the corner of his eye.

"Anyone, or just you?"

Seth turns his head just enough to narrow his eyes at John like he's cursing John out in his head. John smothers his grin at that stupid face, but one side of his mouth escapes his control, so he knows he's smirking. John doesn't really care, though. Seth got smacked down by Bobby, and that's kind of funny.

"We need paint," Seth says suddenly.

He drops his hammer before John can say that they're not quite ready for the finishing touches on the room, but John allows the man his retreat out of the house to the garage. It gives him free reign to grin some more. Suddenly, something crashes from upstairs in the house. John just grits his teeth and hopes his boys haven't broken anything that Bobby is going to need replaced.

"Dad!" Dean screams from above him.

John's blood goes cold at hearing Dean sound so panicked and desperate. That crash wasn't just an accident. His boys are hurt. And Dean can still yell, so that means Sammy's hurt.

John drops his hammer and bolts out the open doorway of the room. He uses the railing of the stairway to pull himself up faster, hand over hand propelling himself to the first floor. Hooking a hand in the doorjamb, John swings himself into the hallway and runs into the living room.

Dean's on his knees, leaning close over Sammy, who's on his back in the middle of the floor. Sammy's eyes are only half-open, but they look unfocused. He has a gash in his forehead, almost at his hairline. His nose is streaming blood. It drips down past his mouth onto Bobby's carpet.

"Dad!"

John jolts forward and collapses to his knees on Sammy's other side.

"What happened?" he snaps. He starts pushing back Sam's hair so he can see the wound on his forehead better.

"I don't know." Dean clutches at Sam's hand and arm. Sammy's skin looks pale next to Dean's. "His eyes just rolled back, and he fell." Dean takes a shaky breath. "Dad, he started shaking."

John can't feel his lungs. That sounds like a seizure. John knows exactly what to do to stop a witch or to kill a Mare, but medical problems—? God, seizures mean brain problems. Sammy loves books. He actually _likes _school. Sammy can't have brain problems.

John cradles Sammy's head in his hands, tries to get Sam to look forward, look at him.

"Sammy?" he calls. "Sammy, look at me."

Sammy doesn't look at him.

John moves his hands down to Sammy's shoulders and grips them tightly. He needs Sam to wake up, break out of this half-dead stare with blank eyes. Dean breaks away to the couch, but John barely notices as he rises up on his knees and puts his face so close to his son's that he can actually feel Sammy breathing. It's not as comforting as it should be.

"Sammy."

Suddenly, Sammy gasps, sucking in a rasping breath and arching his neck so far that his head rolls back on the floor. John tries to support his head without actually holding him down, just in case a seizure is actually a viable option here.

"No!"

Sammy's voice is harsh and wet with the blood around his top lip. His eyes fly open, but they're still unfocused as Sammy stares at the ceiling, past John.

"No, no." Sammy shakes his head from side to side, wide-eyed and desperate.

"Sammy." John brings his other hand up to hold Sam's head still, worried about the blood and the wounds he already has. "Sammy, you're okay. You hear me."

He forces his voice to come out strong, no question in it. If he changes it into a question, Sammy might not believe he is actually alright.

"She's burning," Sammy whispers, his eyes still on the ceiling.

John's heart kicks hard against his chest, like it's just exploded inside him. He can feel heat crawling up his arms like small tongues of fire.

"Sammy!" Dean cries from the couch, suddenly holding a flattened pillow from Seth's bedding.

Dean falls next to Sammy like he's sliding into home. He slips the pillow underneath Sammy's head so quickly that John doesn't even realize that his hands have been knocked out of the way until he looks down at his own fists, resting on top his jeans.

"Dean, there's a lady on the ceiling," Sammy says in a small, scared voice.

"No, there's not." Dean tilts his head sideways and leans back slightly so that he's not blocking Sammy's view straight up. "See?"

John doesn't look up. He is _not_ going to play into whatever dream Sam has had by looking up to check what Bobby's ceiling looks like. Sammy's forehead wrinkles, which sends blood flowing over the top of his eyebrow towards the corner of his eye.

"There was a lady on the ceiling," Sammy says. Dean catches the trickle of blood with his thumb before it reaches Sammy's eye. "She was burning."

"What?" Dean suddenly freezes.

The hairs on the back of John's neck stand up so quickly that it feels like he's in a house with a ghost for a moment. The flash of a room on fire from the ceiling to the floor passes through John's mind, and he forces it down into his stomach, turning the fire to anger.

"What did she look like?" he says.

Sammy blinks very slowly. His head turns on the pillow to look at John. His eyes are clearer now, but they're slow to open again once he closes them.

"I …"

"Sam." John leans forward. "What did she look like?"

Sam has to know this, and he _has _to tell John. John needs to know this. His hand is tight around Sammy's arm, and when did that happen?

"She …" Sammy breathes in a shaky breath. "She had blonde hair. She was bleeding."

John suddenly jerks back. His hands are cold.

"Dad," Sammy whines, his head almost flat against the pillow.

John can't move.

"Hey, you're okay." Dean gently lays a hand on Sam's face and turns it back towards him. "It was just a dream."

"But I wasn't even sleeping." Sammy's voice rises, like his lungs are getting smaller.

Dean's hand travels down Sammy's cheek to grab onto his shoulder and hang on fiercely as Dean looks up and pins John with a desperate gaze.

"Dad?"

John's hands are cold. If he touches anything, it's going to freeze. His skin feels too tight on his body, and his muscles refuse to move.

"My head hurts." Sam closes his eyes again and lets his head sink back down on the pillow.

"Dean?"

John's body jerks as his head snaps around to look over his shoulder. He's completely forgotten about Seth, but there he stands in the middle of the front door, a paint can in one hand.

Dean immediately slips his arms underneath Sammy's shoulders and knees. John cups the back of Sam's head with one hand as Dean lifts his brother in his arms and gets jerkily to his feet.

"Bring him over here," Seth says, completely without purpose as Dean is already carrying Sammy towards the couch.

Sammy just lays passively in his brother's arms, and John wants to shake the boy awake. But then he's still bleeding, too.

"Here ya go, Sammy."

Dean lays Sammy gently on the couch with his head cradled on the pillows. Then he spins around and snatches the blanket out of Seth's hands. Seth doesn't even glance at Dean as the teenager tucks Sam in.

"I'm not tired," Sammy says with his eyes closed.

"Sure you're not." Dean fiddles with the blanket around Sammy's chin and ruffles the kid's hair gently. "You want some water?"

"Yeah?" Sammy cracks one eye open to look at Dean, although he doesn't really sound awake.

Dean nods anyway and steps into the kitchen for a glass, Seth quick on his heels before turning into the bathroom in the hall. John walks up to the couch and kneels down so that he's eye level with Sammy.

"Sammy," he calls, "what did the woman on the ceiling look like?"

Sam turns his head away from John to the back of the couch.

"I dunno."

"What was she wearing?" John leans closer, but he doesn't pull Sammy's head back to look at him. Not yet.

"I dunno," Sammy says again. "Like a white dress."

Dean comes back with a tall glass of water along with two little pills. Seth must know where Bobby keeps his pain pills

"Hey, Sam." Dean stands close to the couch and leans down, almost edging John out of the way. "You feel good enough to wipe your face?"

Dean sets the water and pills on the floor by the couch and reaches out with a wet cloth draped over his wrist. Instead of answering, Sammy reaches out and grabs the washcloth, swiping it under his nose with one hand. Dean lays one hand over Sammy's and helps him dab away the blood.

John just stands back. There's nothing left for him to do, and what little he already knows is enough to make him sick. He turns away from the couch and sees Seth standing in the middle of the living room, staring up at Bobby's ceiling. Despite himself, John's eyes flick upwards as his heart pounds against his eardrums.

There's nothing there.

**o0O0o**

"How's Sam?" Seth leans on Bobby's dining table with his elbows hanging off the edges.

"Sleeping. Still." John scrubs his palms over his face hard. "He hasn't woken up since Dean put him to bed."

The sleeping actually worries John since sleep is when the nightmares come. And the nosebleeds, apparently. John glances at the couch just beyond Seth's shoulder and sees the fresh stain of blood drops. He braces his hands against the counter.

"This isn't medical," he says.

Seeing that Seth knows little about Sammy's episodes so far, the man could actually think this was normal for Sam.

"I can fix this." John nods to himself.

Seth just stares at him.

"You can _fix_ this?"

His face is dull and slack, but something about Seth's eyes challenges John. His forehead prickles as he straightens, defensive.

"It's either a hag or a Mare," John says, glaring at Seth. "I just have to find it and kill it."

Seth slumps back in his chair.

"That easy?" he says blandly. "Find the bad thing. Kill it."

"Yes." John frowns at Seth.

"No matter what."

"_Yes_." What else is he supposed to do?

Seth heaves a great sigh, like the whole house doesn't have enough oxygen to express his frustration with John.

"It's not that simple," he says.

John wants to throw his hands in the air and say _To hell with this_. Wanting to save a man who has the misfortune to be possessed by an imp is one thing—

"You want to let a _hag_ live?" John demands.

"It's not a hag." Seth's breath is quiet and tired. He drops his eyes down to the table, opening the leather journal in front of him.

"A Mare?" John leans over the table and hopes Seth has found another one of his encyclopedia entries from his ink and leather journal.

Seth slides the journal towards himself, which only makes John lean further forward. The table starts digging into his thighs.

"It's not a Mare," Seth says shortly.

The page Seth is on doesn't even look like one of his encyclopedic entries. There's a sideways drawing of a couple skinny triangles on top of each other with a line through them, but John can't read Seth's handwriting upside down very well. He just knows this has nothing to do with Mares or hags.

"Do you have anything in there about nightmares?" John lays his hands flat on the table and gets in Seth's face.

"No."

"Then stick to your expertise." John shoves back from the table and sends the table legs skidding on the cheap linoleum.

Seth has to slap his palms on the table to keep it from shaking, and he glares at John. John just turns to grab another mug of coffee. They didn't get much work done after sending Sammy to bed — between John trying to research the hell out of Sammy's condition, and Seth running between the basement where he worked on the panic room by himself and upstairs where he checked periodically on Sam and Dean. It already feels like it's been a long day.

"At least wait until we have the Colt," Seth says.

When John turns around, Seth hasn't moved his hands, as if he's holding the table still in an earthquake.

"Then you can go out and hunt whatever you want." Seth drops his eyes back down to his journal, like he just wanted to make sure John was paying attention. "Just make sure what you're hunting is worth it."

John really doesn't have time for cryptic warnings. Even less when he has no idea what Seth is warning him about.

"The Colt is for the Demon." That's the whole point of the panic room and Bobby taking off to _get_ the damn gun.

"It's a gun that can kill anything." Seth lifts his eyes without moving his head, which produces a look that John is coming to recognize as Seth's bitch face. "Just. Save it."

John ignores Seth's urgent tone and starts on his coffee. Why is Seth so sure that this isn't a hag _or_ a Mare? He hunts _demons_, not—

John's blood turns suddenly cold in his veins.

"Can a demon cause nightmares?"

"I'd say they're enough to give anyone nightmares." There's something both dark and tense in Seth's voice that sets the hairs on John's neck on end.

"Seth, answer me!" John spins around to face Seth. "Can a demon plant nightmares in someone's head?"

Seth rests his elbows on the table, framing his journal, and lets his head sag into his hands.

"I don't know."

He's lying.

"How?"

"I don't know!" Seth straightens and bolts out of his chair.

John grits his teeth and tosses his coffee down the sink. His stomach is already eating itself. Seth paces the kitchen once, more indecisive than agitated.

"Look." Seth points one finger at John. "Even if … you're right—" As if that wasn't an obvious tell— "We can't do anything without the Colt."

"Who says we can't?" It's not that different from what John's done in the past: Find the sucker the demon's possessing, trap it if necessary, and send the bastard back to hell.

Seth's eyes narrow.

"Do you really want to go up against a nightmare-causing demon without a weapon? Without a plan?"

"I _have_ a plan," John says.

"Yeah, find the bad thing, kill it." Seth slices a hand through the air like he's holding his crazy scythe.

"Sammy is having nightmares so bad he's bleeding," John hisses.

"That's not his fault!" Seth gets in close like he wants to be shouting, but he never raises his voice.

And when did John say any of this is Sammy's fault?

Seth draws back abruptly and pushes a hand through his long hair.

"Listen, we can't do anything like this," he says, calmer now. "Let's finish the panic room and see where Bobby's at."

John isn't going to get any help from Seth on this. At the same time, he knows that Seth knows something he's not sharing. Time to switch strategies.

"Fine," he says grudgingly. "Let's get to work."

Seth pumps his head once, like that settles things, and scoops his journal off the table. John shifts like he's going to the counter, but he keeps an eye on where Seth stashes the journal, under a pile of Bobby's texts he's keeping beside the couch.


	5. Chapter 5

_Lilith – Supposed first demon ever created by Lucifer. Has command over hellhounds and other demons. First wife of Adam before corruption by Hell._

* * *

John slips into the room. Dean's on his own bed — finally, the boys are too old to share a bed — and Sammy's blankets are coming loose from around his chin. The skin under his nose still looks red, and there's a crust of dried blood around one nostril. The dreamweaver spins lazily above Sammy's bed, and John turns to sneak back out the door.

"Dad?"

Of all times for Sammy to wake up. Still, John turns around and almost smiles at the sight of Sammy's half-open eyes. He walks over to the bed before Sam can wake up his brother.

"Hey, kiddo." John perches on the edge of the bed. "You feeling better?"

"I guess." Sammy shrugs more of his covers off and lifts one hand to itch at his nose.

John catches Sammy's hand before it can reach his nose. Then he sees some kind of black marker doodles on Sammy's arm. Wrapping one hand around Sam's wrist, John carefully twists the arm until he has a clear view of the digits that trail down the inside of Sammy's arm, from the edge of his t-shirt down to his wrist.

"Where'd these come from?"

If Sam's been practicing on himself, John's going to have a talk with Seth about his teaching methods.

"Seth drew 'em." Sam's eyes fall closed. "T'keep away the nightmares."

John isn't surprised. Seth's edgy behavior practically screamed demon. But John still wraps his hand around Sammy's wrist so that his fingers press into Sam's pulse. It thumps steadily against his skin.

"They workin'?" John asks.

Sammy shrugs again, but John keeps holding onto his wrist.

"Kinda," Sammy says. "Had a dream, but I don't remember it."

"Sam, you have to remember." John lets go of Sammy's wrist so he can clasp his hands on either side of Sam's face. "It's important."

Sammy's eyes slide open and closed again, and his forehead puckers like thinking is too hard for him right now.

"I dunno," he groans. "There was a man."

Real helpful, right there.

"An' he had yellow eyes," Sammy says.

John's heart stops. It must because he can't feel it beating anymore, and his chest is tight. Maybe he's having a heart attack.

"Okay," John breathes. His voice won't get any louder for some reason.

Right. Shouldn't wake Dean up.

John's hands drop limply from Sammy's face to his shoulders, and he pats the boy twice.

"Good job, Sammy."

He has to go. He has to do something.

"Hey, Dad," Sammy calls just as John tries to rise from the bed. "Am I bad?"

"What?" John frowns down at Sam.

Where had that come from?

"I keep dreaming bad things, an' I'm always in them." Sammy's eyes squeeze shut. "I don't wanna be bad."

John can feel his heart again. It's not really a good feeling.

"You're not bad, Sammy," he says. He bends over and presses his hands on Sammy's shoulders, squeezing hard. "You're not."

Sam throws limp arms around his Dad and squeezes right back. John can feel the thinness of Sammy's arms through his shirt. He can't take the fragility in the hug, and he pries Sam's arms off him, pushing the boy to lay back down on the pillow.

"Go to sleep," he orders.

Sammy kind of nods; it's just enough to push his chin toward his chest, but it still looks a little funny while John's pushing him into the pillow. Sammy's eyes close quickly, though, and John stands up, checking to make sure the dreamcatcher is attached firmly to the nail above Sam's head. When he turns to leave, Dean's eyes are open and staring at him. John stops for a moment, about to tell Dean to watch out for his brother, but the words won't come. He doesn't even need to say them. He hasn't for a while. John nods once, deeply, at Dean, and leaves.

Seth sits at the kitchen table like he has a spot there engraved for himself. John marches over and sits himself down across from Seth, who slides a mug of black coffee over to him. A part of him wants to throw out the question about the symbols on Sammy's arms, but John already knows they're protecting his boy. They're not the problem here.

Seth finally looks up at John.

"There's a man in Minnesota who has some metal work for the grill. For the fan?" he says absently. "He said he'll meet me in Sioux Falls, but he doesn't want to come any closer."

"Sounds fine," John grunts.

"I should be back in an hour, maybe two."

That's not a lot of time, but it should be enough for what John has in mind. He just nods and wraps a hand around the coffee mug.

"Right." Seth pushes himself away from the table and to his feet. His hands twitch by his sides as he gathers up his gun, a large book, and that oil cloth John remembers from the arachne case, stuffing them all in a backpack. Seth slides his wallet into his back pocket and scoops a set of keys from Bobby's counter.

"I'll be back," he says needlessly.

John nods and stays where he is. He doesn't move until he hears the thrum of Seth's engine dim with the miles between him and the salvage yard. Then, John gets up, walks over to the couch, and pulls Seth's leather journal out from under his stack of books. He's just lucky Seth didn't decide to take it with him.

Flipping through the pages with his thumb, John scans each page as it passes him, looking for something he's only half-sure is going to be here. But Seth knows more about demons than any hunter John has met so far, so if the Yellow-Eyed-Knight-of-Hell demon bastard had anything to do with nightmares and nosebleeds, John's going to find it here, not in some dusty old—

_Sammy Winchester_

John's eyes freeze on Sammy's name, written in ink on a mostly-blank page towards the back of the journal. It's a list of names, some of which John recognizes. Sammy's name is at the bottom. Nothing after it, just his name.

Mind control? _Visions_?! John feels sick, and he swallows hard. What is Seth doing to Sammy? No, this can't actually be Seth's doing. Seth _likes_ Sammy. John's been half-afraid that there's a reason that Seth's so determined to protect Sammy. He can appreciate that Seth comes from a family in the hunting business — and that Seth is apparently the only surviving member — but Seth is _not_ allowed to use Sammy as some kind of second chance for himself. Whatever they call that— Vicarious Living. Right. Because Seth lost his family to a demon—

That's why. Seth wants to protect Sammy because he knows what they're up against. He's known about this since Joliet. Maybe before. And if he wants to protect Sammy, then why isn't he telling John everything?

John flips one page backwards in the journal and finds another list, this one with two columns. One list is a lot shorter, but John's eyes are drawn to the longer one, with names that are half-regular and half-Biblical. At the very top is written Azazel. John knows that name. He's seen it before, before all the research about hags and Mares took over the demonology texts in Bobby's office. There's a dark ink smudge beside Azazel's name, like Seth was about to check off the name or scratch it out. So, what? This is a hit list? And Seth knows about Azazel, obviously, but what is he trying to do? Use Sammy as bait?

As soon as the idea pops into John's head, it makes so much sense. Azazel is the mastermind of this whole thing; the list of kids, the nightmares. Seth hasn't wanted to tell John anything until they have both the panic room and the Colt, even though the room is pretty much finished and strong enough already to hold a demon. Seth is willing to risk Sammy just because he wants to be the one to kill the first demon on his hit list.

Screw that.

John turns a few pages in the journal until he finds the pointy symbol he had seen Seth staring at right after Sammy's vision — and God, Sammy's getting visions from a demon — and he tears the page out of the journal before throwing it back on the couch. Who cares if Seth finds it that way; John has bigger problems to worry about and not much time before Seth interferes. He stomps to Bobby's office to get the things he's going to need.

**o0O0o**

In the dark, John walks down the hallway of Bobby's second floor and quietly opens the door to the boys' bedroom. Peeking his head in, he sees both beds full with the covers curled around the smaller bodies of his sons. He stands in the doorway for a moment, breathing in and out and listening to the echoes of his own breath. Satisfied that Dean and Sam are sleeping, John closes the door again and moves just as quietly down the stairs.

It's taken him more than an hour to find all the ingredients he needs, which means Seth should be coming back soon. He doesn't have much time to do this, so John bypasses the entire first floor, the living room and the empty kitchen, and heads for the door in the hallway that leads to the basement staircase. He pauses at the door to the panic room long enough to lay down a line of salt before he enters the room with his arms full and leaves the door open behind him. Escape route.

John lays the items in his arms down on the unfinished floor and takes a thick black permanent marker in his hand. He pulls the crumpled page from Seth's journal out of the back waistband of his jeans and unfolds it, smoothing it out against his leg. He steps up on the stepladder he and Seth have been using for the wiring and starts drawing on the ceiling, all around the opening for the extraction fan. The devil's trap is complicated, more so even than the symbols John drew on the warehouse where he and Seth challenged that imp. But John goes back and forth, making the circle as round as he can and the lines as straight as possible where they need to be. By the time he's done with it, it's pretty much the best circle he's ever drawn, and that includes geometry class in high school.

Next is the floor. The Sigil of Saturn in John's hand must be the one to call Azazel because it's related to the scapegoat demon. Somehow. John doesn't want to know the why's and wherefore's of demons, so he just accepts it and draws the symbol with two skinny triangles overtop of each other and a straight line through them both. He lays out the six candles at the points of all the lines and traces circles around those. His Zippo from his pocket is enough to light them, although John burns the side of his forefinger on the last one. All that's left is the acacia and the oil of Abrameli, which was the hardest to find. Luckily Bobby keeps it out back for consecrations.

The ingredients, John measures with precision in the silent, sleeping house. The bulb attached to the fan is his only light, and that was just wired in yesterday. John had actually been surprised that Seth knew anything about electric work. Seth had laughed something about how his dad had been a failure with a hammer but good with a gun, like that was supposed to explain anything, including the little half-smile Seth had shot at John. Like John was supposed to get the joke.

John finishes his mixing and dusts the paste over the symbol. He looks down at the words he penciled onto Seth's journal page himself. The man can't get mad at him when he's hunting the same thing John is.

The Latin feels heavy on John's tongue as he speaks it. He's not as good at this as Sammy is.

The candles fare with white light, hotter and brighter than any candle should. John lifts a hand to his face instinctively, but he tries to keep it at his forehead, shielding his eyes instead of completely covering them. He can't afford to lose his sight. The light dies down, and John hears a _snap-hiss_ as the bulb above him blows out and flings glass into the corners of the small room. John drops his hand immediately and blinks to clear his vision. He's still seeing white spots, like he stared at the sun too long, but he can make out a figure in the center of the room. It looks like a man, about John's age, with light hair that's cut close to his head.

Then the man blinks, and his eyes glow ghastly yellow.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: I am terribly sorry about the lateness of the chapter, but just so you know I'm blaming the website for giving me error messages last night right when I wanted to post.

Again, slight violence in this chapter, but nothing above what's on the show.

* * *

_Azazel – demon of the scapegoat. Knight of Hell. Appointed by Lucifer, who is said to have fathered Azazel after his Fall._

* * *

"Hello, John."

John raises his only weapon, the revolver he always carries, and points it right at the Demon's head.

"Now, you know that's not going to do anything to me." The smile looks almost too wide for a human face, giving the Demon too many teeth.

"Make me feel better." John's grip tightens on the grip of the gun, but he keeps his trigger finger relaxed.

He needs to keep his head. John draws in a breath without opening his mouth. The air feels dry and inadequate in his lungs.

"Are you Azazel?"

"Thought you'd never guess."

Yellow eyes don't even blink as Azazel's grin grows wider.

"C'mon, Johnny. After all these years, why now?"

The room is so small that John could press the muzzle of his gun up against the Demon's chest if he only took a half a step forward. Azazel hasn't looked up at the ceiling or even glanced at any of the symbols of the wall. John doesn't know if the demon just _knows_ that it's trapped or if it's just that confident that it doesn't care what's written on the walls.

"You're after my sons," John says and holds his arm stiffly, almost locking it in place to make sure he doesn't actually take that half a step forward.

"Sons?" Azazel lifts his eyebrows like a pretentious douchebag. "You're claiming both of them, John? Even after what you know about Sammy?"

Azazel smiles like he finds that funny. A picture of Sammy lying on the living room floor and bleeding from his head, his nose, his mouth flashes across John's mind before he can stamp it down and stare into Azazel's yellow eyes so that he doesn't think of Sammy and Dean asleep upstairs where he left them.

"They're _my_ sons," he growls at the demon.

Azazel lifts one shoulder in a shrug. The body he's wearing looks slumped and casual; the kind of man John would see at a bar after second shift or something.

"Sammy's an awful lot like his mother," says Azazel.

John doesn't dare close his eyes, even when he sees a glimpse of white fluttering on the ceiling. His skin feels tight as if he feels the heat of the candles directly on his skin.

It's a trick. Demons _lie_.

"Leave my boys alone."

"Or what, John?" Azazel closes in that half-step that separates them. He stares into John's eyes, unblinking even when John's gun rests where the heart should be. "You'll hit me?"

Azazel actually laughs in John's face. Well, it's more of a chuckle, a huff of breath so close to him that John smells sulfur. That only makes it worse.

"What do you think _that_ is really going to do to me?" Yellow eyes finally flick down to the dun at the demon's chest. It's the closest the eyes have come to blinking. "You can't kill me. And you have nothing I want."

Not true. The Demon wants Sammy. John doesn't know why or how, but he knows he can't let this _thing_ have his son.

"I'll stop hunting you." John takes a risk and carefully lowers the hammer on his revolver. It's not like the gun is going to do any damage anyway. John leans back enough to lift the muzzle of the gun from the demon's chest.

"Leave Sammy alone, and I won't hunt you," John says. "I swear."

Azazel purses his lips and makes a show of tapping his fingers against his mouth, like a mime acting out a charade.

"You swear," the demon repeats blankly.

Is a _demon_ really calling John's word into question? Suddenly, John hears a loud crash behind him and turns to see the iron door slam shut. The lock turns with a soft sound that John still hears. As soon as John hears the lock click into place, his feet leave the floor as he sails through the air.

It's not quite like before. There's no band of pressure around his chest like a giant fist. He's just suddenly pinned against the iron door, his feet a few inches above the floor. Nothing is holding him there. There's no reason that John can't move, but John _can't_ move.

"Do you really think you could pose a threat to me?" Azazel hisses. "What can you do to me, Johnny? Nothing."

John glances down the length of his body. His gun is still in his hand, by virtue of loosely curled fingers that he can't really feel. And, even theough he has the gun, his body is still paralyzed. The Demon steps forward, advancing on John slowly like some predator.

"I could take what I want right now, and you wouldn't be able to do a thing about it."

John's heart surges, but his body still refuses to move.

"Like hell." John jerks his chin and glares at the demon.

"Oh, exactly." Azazel grins. "You have no idea what's in store, John."

Azazel lifts a hand. John braces for the strike he's sure is coming, but Azazel simply pinches John's chin in his long fingers and pulls his face close.

"The glory that Sammy was born for." Azazel sighs, like he's praying. "He's very special, your boy."

"Dad?"

Dean's voice practically floats down the wooden steps to the basement, it's so light and quiet in the morning. Azazel's eyes go wide, and his lips part into a slowly stretching smile that shows off his teeth.

"Stay upstairs, Dean!" John shouts, his back still pressed against the door.

"Now, John." Azazel shakes his head with a disappointed slump to his shoulders. "This is a _family_ business, after all. Invite the kiddies down."

John tilts his chin up enough so that he can suck on his tongue. He spits at Azazel. His spittle arcs and lands on the floor somewhere between his body and Azazel's feet. But before John can even see the demon's reaction, John feels that same band against his chest yank him away from the metal door and pull him flying through the air. He doesn't have time to breathe before he's up against the wall again, breath knocked out of his lungs and gun slammed from his hand. This time, he's facing the door to the room, and he opens his eyes just in time to see it sail open.

"Dad!" Dean cries, but John hears Sammy's same cry right behind Dean's, a second separating his boys' voices.

John opens his mouth to tell them to run. Get away. Even if Azazel has him, the demon can't leave the room. As long as Sammy and Dean stay away—

"Hello, boys," comes Azazel's pleasantly slimy voice.

John sucks in as much as he can into his winded lungs and watches Dean skid to a stop in the open doorway, bracing himself with his hands on the frame of the door to keep from sliding right through the salt line. Good eyes on that kid. Sammy slams into his brother's back and wraps one arm around Dean's waist. He ducks under Dean's arm so that he can see, and John sees the still-red skin under his nose, the glorious bruise on his forehead.

"Dad!" Sam screams, his fists tight and hard in Dean's shirt.

Dean lowers one hand to press back against Sammy's chest, like he's trying to shove Sammy further behind him, a human shield for his little brother.

"Sammy," Azazel says in a soft, pleased voice.

_No_. Someone get this bastard away from his son. John wills every muscle, _any_ muscle, in his body to move. He kicks, he fights, he gasps for breath. But nothing happens. His body is still pinned up against the wall. He watches as Azazel takes a step forward, his back completely to John.

"Did you like the gift I gave you, Sammy?"

"Gift?" Sammy peers around Dean's torso as Dean tries to shove him backwards.

"Sam, get out of here."

Dean has no weapons but his own hands. That's not going to help. John glances down at his revolver on the floor. The Demon is still between Dean and the gun.

"You've seen it for a while," Azazel continues, his eyes fixed on Sammy as if Dean's beneath his notice. "You just get so angry at your brother."

Sammy looks pale in the candlelight, his injuries standing out as they surround his wide eyes.

"I don't—" Sammy's chest heaves. He tries to breathe. "I didn't—"

"Your dad doesn't love you." Another step forward for Azazel.

"No." Tears slip out of Sammy's eyes. John pushes his chest forward like that's going to dislodge him from the wall.

"She's going to burn."

"No!"

Sammy releases Dean and lunges forward with his hands curled into fists.

"Sammy, run!" Dean shouts.

Dean grabs the back of Sammy's shirt and yanks him backwards before Sam can cross the salt line that's still intact across the doorway. But why isn't Dean running, too? John can die. John can go a hundred rounds locked in this room with this son of a bitch if it means his sons will get out of here.

"It's what's going to happen if you stay away, Sammy," Azazel says. "You have a magnificent destiny." Another step forward. "One reserved for so few that no one's been able to do anything like this before." Azazel stretches out his hand. "I picked you out especially, Sammy."

A flash of silver, and Azazel draws back with a hiss. Dean clutches the switchblade in his hand, holding it in front of him like a sword.

"You stay the hell away from my brother." His eyes burn at the Demon.

Azazel raises his eyebrow in a way that says _most unorthodox_ and then flicks his eyes down to the ground at Dean's feet. Dean follows his gaze.

_Don't do that_, John wants to shout. _Demons lie._

The hand that holds the switchblade hovers across the salt line. Dean's head snaps up, but Azazel already has one hand lifted, and he flicks two of his fingers.

Dean's wrist snaps too far backwards with a crunchy _crack_. Dean screams and drops the blade. At least one of his bones is broken, probably both. Then, Dean's body jerks through the open doorway, injured hand leading the way. Dean slams headfirst into the wall beside John and then slumps to the floor. John's so close that he could touch Dean if only his body would obey him.

"Dean!" Sammy hunches over his stomach and screams, but he stays on the other side of the salt.

Azazel closes in on the doorway and stoops down so that he's closer to Sammy's level. John's breath comes quicker.

"You can make this stop, Sammy," the demon says kindly. "I can make everything bad go away. You won't have to wait around for Daddy to come to a soccer game anymore."

Azazel lifts his hand and pets at the air in front of Sammy's face like he's stroking down Sammy's cheek.

"I could be a good daddy," he says. "Would you like that, Sammy?"

John's chest burns, and his lungs explode.

"No!" he shouts. "Me, you bastard! Take me!"

That pressure is suddenly on John's chest. It's not just that his body is paralyzed now; that invisible hand presses him straight against the wall and forces the air out of his lungs. He can't breathe.

"Sammy?" says the Demon. "Wouldn't you like that?"

John's head is getting light. It's hard to see in the room, and the candles are starting to look like thin little lightbulbs in the darkness.

"Stop it!" Sammy cries, high and loud.

The shout makes John open his eyes wider and try to breathe. His head is knocking against the ceiling of the room now. He hadn't even been aware that he was moving. To his side, Dean is pinned to the wall as well, just a few feet below John. When did that happen?

"Stop what?" Azazel asks lightly. "How do I know you're not the one doing this? Don't you want to teach your dad a lesson?"

John edges further up so that his neck has to twist at an uncomfortable angle to press tight to the ceiling.

"I don't! I'm not!" Sammy squeezes his eyes shut as tears drip down his face. His nose starts to bleed. "Stop it!"

A sharp and sudden _bang_ splits the heavy air. John's body stops moving at the same time he registers the gunshot. Dean?

"He said stop."

No, that's Seth. John forces his eyes open and sees Seth standing at the base of the basement stairs. He has his handgun in his right hand while that crazy-ass scythe is in his left. He looks like a giant behind Sammy, like a guardian.

"How many bloody hunters are there in this house?" Azazel throws his hands in the air with a useless gesture as he straightens and turns enough so that John can see the bullet hole right in the middle of Azazel's forehead. John thinks he's going to chew Seth out for shooting a gun when the target is that close to Sam. Later.

Then, Seth steps forward, putting his body at Sammy's back. The light from upstairs shines at his back, and the candlelight shows more of his face now. Azazel freezes and slowly turns to face Seth full on.

"Oh," he breathes. "Well, I heard there was another Winchester floating around."

John blinks and tries to breathe in very quietly while also taking in as much oxygen as he can. The lack of air is apparently affecting his brain. Azazel still has his back to him.

"You boys just won't quit." The demon's head shakes slowly.

"You have no idea." Seth's eyes are hard like John hasn't seen before. He keeps his gun trained on the demon, but he still has his scythe held out so that his arm blocks most of Sammy from view.

"And what do you contribute to this motley crew?" Ax axel tilts his chin up and peers at both Seth and Sammy, trying to look down his nose. It actually doesn't look like it's working with Seth standing so rigidly tall.

"Take me, and leave," says Seth.

John's heart thuds against his ribs. What is Seth doing? He was the one who told John to wait for a plan, for the Colt. And the gun Seth has sure isn't a Colt revolver. So Seth's new plan is self-sacrifice? Awesome.

"Sorry, what was that?" Azazel cups his hand around one ear and tilts his head down with an expectant look on his face.

Seth doesn't move.

"Take me, and leave this place," he says again. "Leave John, Dean, and Sam alone."

Sammy clings to the edge of Seth's shirt, hanging on without really pulling at the fabric like he's trying not to let Seth know that he's doing it. Seth doesn't look down at Sammy or try to get the kid to let go of him.

Azazel drops his and curls his lips back into a sneer. It looks better than his smile, John thinks as his neck grows sore. At least this way Azazel actually looks like the evil that he is.

"What's the appeal for you?" Azazel faces Seth, and John knows the demon isn't happy. "I can smell you from here. You stink of Heaven."

Heaven? How does that work? Does that mean Seth is dead? That can't be right because Seth is human. Seth doesn't change his expression except to lower his eyebrows so his frown turns into something altogether disapproving.

"You would know," he says shortly.

Seth steps forward so that his toe actually brushes the grains of sand that border the doorway. John strains and flexes his shoulders, or tries to. His body is still frozen, but it's getting easier to breathe.

"I have power that he doesn't." Seth's arm pushes on Sammy as Seth shifts his own weight so that Azazels eyes follow Seth, not Sam. "I've been polluted and purified. I know what you want."

Azazel leans back slowly while John reels on the ceiling. Seth knows what the Yellow-Eyed Bastard wants?! All this time, he's known? Still, Seth holds out one arm to protect John's son while the other holds a gun on his enemy. Azazel goes back to the slow, wide grin that John already hates.

"And you're just going to give it to me?" Azazel scoffs.

John's eyes find Sammy, but the cry to run won't leave his mouth. His lips form the words, and he can hear the hoarse noise like a cough that comes from his throat. Sammy's eyes dart up to the ceiling, but he barely glances at John before he drops his chin again. A streak of blood stains Sammy's arm where he's swiped the back of his arm under his bloody nose.

"Of course not," Seth says. John feels his lungs expand. He can breathe.

"But if you manage to break me," Seth says, "you'll have more to work with, won't you?"

John squints at Seth down below. Now the Demon wants Seth?

"You don't even have to wait." Seth isn't even frowning anymore. He's actually trying to convince the demon. "You take a risk with me, but the payoff's better."

Azazel takes one step backward. Half of his mouth is smiling while the other half is slack and barely open.

"You think you can beat me," the demon says softly, shocked.

Azazel's half-smile slowly turns into a full grin.

"You're on, Winchester."

Seth nods solemnly then turns and stoops down. He wraps his left arm around Sammy's shoulders and holds the revolver in front of him. Sammy takes the gun with both hands shaking. With his head bent down so far John can't see his face, Seth puts his mouth next to Sammy's ear and whispers something. Then Seth stands straight and steps over the salt line.

John expects something to happen right away, but Azazel just stays where he is as Seth walks across the room, his short scythe still in his hand. Seth takes the stepstool that rests to one side of the symbol on the floor and reaches up above his head to the devil's trap John drew around the broken lightbulb. He lingers close enough for John to see Seth's white knuckles around the handle of his blade. Then, Seth scrapes the edge of the scythe through the drywall on the ceiling and makes a blank space that breaks up the circle. Azazel's hand shoots out immediately and closes around Seth's arm. A flash of white blinds John, and suddenly it's like gravity re-enters the picture. John comes free from the wall and crashes to the floor. His arm hits something solid beside him, and Dean gives a pained cry that cuts off almost immediately.

"Dad!" Sammy cries. "Dean!"

John peels his eyes open quickly, blinking in the darkness. Thin smoke winds its way up from the blown-out candles. Both Azazel and Seth are gone. Sammy races past the door and falls to his knees on front of John, leaving the gun to clatter on the cement floor.

"I'm sorry, Dad." Sammy is sobbing through tears and blood. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Dean finally pushes himself to sit up, his back resting against the wall, and reaches for Sam with his good hand.

"It's okay, Sammy," Dean says weakly.

John braces his hands on the wall behind him and pushes, ignoring the way Sam is folding himself into his big brother while one of Deans hands is tucked tightly into his side. Nothing about this is okay. On shaky legs, John steps forward and kicks at the dark candles. He sends two of them flying into the wall, and a third clatters across the floor. The room is dark and silent.

"Upstairs," John orders.

Dean needs a brace if not a cast, and Sammy needs to wash his face. John stoops to pick up his revolver and Seth's gun from the floor. Seth challenged a demon to break him. And for what? To take John's place? To take Sammy's? It doesn't make sense.

Sammy helps Dean to his feet, although once he's up, Dean doesn't lean any weight on Sammy. It's more just Sammy hugging Dean around his waist and Dean laying his good arm around Sammy's shoulders. John leads the way up the stairs. In the hallway, he sees the living room light on, and a small baseball glove in the middle of the floor, like it's been cast aside. John bends down and picks up the child's baseball glove that Sammy's been using all week. It's been oiled and rubbed.

"Sammy, what did Seth say?" Dean says behind John.

"He said 'sorry'."

John turns the glove over in his hand and sees the writing on the leather across the little finger pad in thick black marker: _John Winchester_.


	7. Chapter 7

_Lucifer – The Morning Star, fallen angel cast out of heaven by God Himself. Whereabouts currently unknown. __**In the Cage.**_

* * *

"What the _samhell_ were you thinking?!"

John winces at Bobby's volume. He'd forgotten how loud Bobby can get when he's actually angry. Usually it's just regular old exasperation and the rolling of eyes. It doesn't help that John's been up all night without doing much of anything. He cleaned up the panic room, scrubbed down every inch of the floor so the sign of Solomon was gone, and he's been paging through Seth's journal, but it's mostly lists with no headers and information without context. John still can't recognize any of the names on Seth's hit list besides Abbadon, and that's towards the bottom, somewhere underneath Raphael.

John can't find anything else on Azazel or any other mention of either Sammy or Dean.

"He was after my boy," John says to Bobby.

It's his only reason, and it's really the only reason that matters.

Bobby tears off his cap as he rubs the top of his head with the heel of his hand before he slaps the cap against his leg. At least he's not yelling anymore, especially with Dean and Sammy both on the couch in the living room, within calling distance of the office where John's trying to tell Bobby what happened since he left.

"You sure?" Bobby finally asks.

John opens the leather journal in his hand to the list of kids' names – he's checked; they're all children – and hands the journal over to Bobby, grateful when the other man takes it without comment. John watches his eyes roam across the page, and he can tell exactly when Bobby reaches the end of the list.

"Balls."

John scoffs. Understatement.

Bobby rests the journal on his knees and leans back in his chair.

"So, the Demon took Seth," he says, getting back to the end of John's story. "What now?"

He looks at John like he expects John to have a plan.

"What do you want me to say?" John glares right back at him. "It wanted my son."

"So, Sammy's off limits, but Seth can go ahead and burn for all you care." Bobby is not impressed.

And it's not that John doesn't care, but Seth ranks below Sammy in his book. Besides, now John isn't sure if Seth is even trustworthy.

"He knew something, Bobby." John's eyes flick down to the journal in Bobby's lap just to make his point.

"'Course he knew something, idjit." Bobby rolls his head on his neck. "He's been trying to take out the top tier of Hell as long as I've known him."

John blinks. That fits in with what Seth knows: Knights of Hell and hit lists and summons for specific demons.

"What?" he starts to ask but can't decide really what he wants to ask. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Bobby jams the cap back on his head.

"Boy gets focused," he mutters with a wrinkle in the middle of his forehead, like that's not a good quality to have. "Besides, it's not your fight. Guess he figured once we caught this Demon and shot it, you'd be gone."

Well, maybe that had been John's plan. He isn't really thinking past getting the Demon. And part of him isn't sure why that should make a difference, but a part of him understands the ease of telling detectives only as much as they need to be helpful to an investigation where they don't fully understand the supernatural. It still bugs him to be on the other end of that, though.

Especially because what the Demon said about Seth is still ringing in the back of his mind.

_Another Winchester floating around . . ._

Azazel's soft, friendly voice creeps out of the box John has forced it into in his brain, whispering about how good of a father he could be, and John shivers violently.

"The Demon wanted Sammy," he says, as if Bobby doesn't already know that part. "It was talking . . ."

"So now it has Seth," says Bobby when John doesn't finish. "You gonna do something about that?"

John shakes his head immediately. If Bobby wants Seth back so badly, then Bobby can go after him. John doesn't need another person to worry about. He's got two too many already. And he's not sure if he should be locking Sammy up in a tower or something like the panic room so no demons can come creeping up and purring that they want to be his daddy.

Bobby raises his eyebrows at John, clearly expecting him to say something. John's chest twists right near his heart, but it's easy to ignore.

"Like what?" he snaps. "Seth walked into that room. He knew what he was doing."

Bobby plants his hands down and half-rises out of his chair. John has just enough time to bring his fists up in case he needs to fight before he hears a completely different voice.

"Dad?"

John freezes, and Bobby immediately sinks back down in his chair. Turning over his shoulder, John sees Sammy standing in the open door to the office. When did the door get open, anyway? Dean's right behind his brother with one hand on his shoulder like they're both in this together.

That doesn't mean anything good for John.

"Hey," he says slowly. "You boys eat?"

Not that the question really mattered. Dean's been able to take care of meals since he figured out how to use a gas stove when he was ten.

"We're gonna find Seth, right?" Sammy's eyes go wide. He's holding that same stupid baseball glove in both his hands.

John hates that glove. Why does that glove has his name on it? John's a common enough name, and he knows that there are Winchesters all across America that he's not related to at all. But why does Seth have a glove that has _John's_ name on it?

"Sammy—"

"Sure we are," Dean says, clamping both his hands on Sammy's shoulders while his eyes stay on John. "The Demon took him, and we can't let Seth stay with that creep."

John looks right into Dean's eyes and wishes he could bawl the kid out for saying something like that with Sammy listening.

"We don't even know where the Demon is," he says, "and we can't just summon it again. He busted the panic room."

"Seth told me where his bunker is," Bobby says. He folds his arms over his chest when John turns to look at him. "He's got enough information there to get through the Apocalypse, and it's safe."

John grinds his teeth together. Dean is one thing. He's a teenager, but Bobby should know better. Seth had practically dared a demon to break him. It had been _Seth's_ choice to sacrifice himself for John's family, and why in the _hell_ would Seth do that if he wasn't _family_?

"Dad," Sammy calls. "He's …" His knuckles whiten against the leather. "It's Seth," he says in the same tone that Dean usually says, "It's Sammy."

Dammit, dammit, _dammit_.

"Okay, we'll go," John says.

Dean sucks in a deep breath while Sammy nods solemnly. John wants to tell his boys that there are no guarantees, but the words freeze in his throat. They look so sure of themselves and their mission. John doesn't know if he is any longer.


End file.
